


Moving

by rainonmyback



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Character Death, M/M, Tragic Romance, Violence, War, don't question how a scottish and american can be on the same side lol, sad :(, war au ????? idk its not in the normal tf2 universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:01:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29849508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainonmyback/pseuds/rainonmyback
Summary: Tavish didn’t understand war.
Relationships: Demoman/Soldier (Team Fortress 2)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 18
Collections: Boots 'n Bombs Fanfiction





	Moving

**Author's Note:**

> hiiii needed to plop this one out here before working more on the new chapter of my megafic!!! :-) hope u enjoy
> 
> listened to square by mitski while writing this one lads

The rain was coming down, cold and harsh. It was just below freezing that morning, and the sun wasn’t around to coddle them. The sky was covered by a thick blanket of smog. Suffocating. The soldiers were running along, mud and grass splashing every which way. The valley was a large area, with hardly any place to find cover. Just some bumps, rising from the Earth, where you could lie belly down and pray to be moving again soon. 

Jane wasn’t thinking straight.  _ Move, move, move. _ They had to move. Enemies were spotted a couple of yards away. It was unsure if their men knew that  _ their  _ men were here as well. No signals from higher ups. No instruction. Stranded. Stuck. 

_ We should be moving.  _

Rain. Bullets, coming down. Soon to be lead ones. 

\--

Tavish didn’t understand war. The  _ so called  _ art of it, drafting the young to their own graves. He was a worker though, and did nicely in training. Wore pain like a fine scarf, and didn’t complain. He used to laugh so much before all of this. Before the gunfire, the flashbangs, the men before him, once running and screaming to all high Hell and Heaven, laying still in body bags. He used to laugh without those kinds of burdens, young and free to drink and get kicked out of bars and chat up the neighbors. 

He almost died once. In the first battle he’d ever been in. The enemy soldier ran out of ammo, shaking and red. He was just a kid, no more than nineteen from the looks of it. Sweat slicked hair, feral in his learned moments, angry. No longer the boy from home, but the animal out of the cage. He had a knife. Tavish didn’t know that. 

Got him, right in his eye. Nearly could’ve gotten his brain, if another fellow soldier hadn’t shot the boy. Right in the neck. Instantly gone.

It hurt like nothing he’d ever experienced, a glaze of scarlet around his vision, breathing made everything worse somehow. He couldn’t get up, fingers prodding for his eye.  _ Where was his eye? _

It was gone, hollowed, still pulsating at the loss. Hot, seething loss. Jane’s arms were on his shoulders, and without meaning to, Tavish gasped out. 

“C’mon. We need to move.”

He helped him up. The sounds of war, screams and orders, flesh tearing and explosions every which way. Tavish smelt smoke and tasted blood. Jane, with a grunt, practically carried him to safety, to a babbling nurse. She patched him up and gave him a pretty little eyepatch. He was going to live.

They talked a few times after that. 

Then more than a few times. Everyday. Getting breakfast. During suppers. Jane had managed to smuggle in some scotch, the good stuff. They sipped on it, sharing the flask. Tavish told tales of home, Jane nodded. He was a good listener. Tavish began to laugh again. 

Though they never acknowledged it, they would fall asleep next to each other, closer than the other soldiers ever did. Tavish felt a little less off the ground at night. Finally on Earth again, or some semblance of it. With Jane. 

\--

This was different. 

Too still for war. You can never settle in during war. 

_ We need to move. We need to move.  _

Jane was saying it, frantic and shaking. Tavish hoped it was just the cold getting to his nerves. He knew it wasn’t. No one moved. 

Suddenly, it all came down. Ambushing, a small flood of enemies, weapons bursting and war cries pouring in. It was Hell. 

Tavish got a few of them. He never liked the gun. Was more useful with a grenade. He was going to seek out a few, try to get in some good hits. 

Then he saw it. 

_ Jane.  _

\--

It all happened in a few transitions. Like a movie on the screen. Jane never cared for movies. He liked the real deal. 

He aimed his gun at the man in front of him, but he wasn’t quick enough. Too late. A direct hit to the chest. Then another. Just for show, he supposes. 

Instantly, he fell to the ground. The other man ran off, not a second thought to be had. Jane closed his eyes, the rain spitting. Into the bleeding wound. Rain filling him. 

Warm hands, all over. His face, his shoulders. Desperate, afraid.  _ Tavish.  _ He opened his eyes. Before he could protest, tell him to get the _ hell out of there _ , before he could say anything at all, Tavish was dragging him, eye wide. 

\--

A hill. It wasn’t big, but Tavish had hopes and dreams. His biggest one at this moment was for all of this to be just a nightmare, something he’d jolt up from at any second. 

Jane groaned. The wound ripped open more, blood spilling.  _ So much blood. _

Tavish lowered himself next to Jane. He was shaking. They both were. 

“I’m not gonna make it.”

Tavish couldn’t say anything. His hands hovered around the wound, helpless. His breathing began to get rougher, heavier. Desperation and tragedy never mixed well. And Heaven wasn’t opening itself up to them. Tavish could feel the hurt in his bones. As if he was the one who was shot. As if he were the dead one. 

“Tavish.”

“I can carry you.”

Thunder from above. Maybe it was the Angels laughing. A sick joke.

“No, you can’t.”

No, he can’t.  _ He can’t.  _

Tavish’s hands, as if they had a mind of their own, reached for Jane’s skin. His face. Soothing the cheeks. Sobs finally broke free, loud and full of shame. 

“Leave me.”

And it felt like the world itself had lost the war. Tavish wanted to scream, to fight, to punch Jane for saying such a thing.  _ How could he?  _ How could he abandon the one person he’d found a home in?

“Don’t make me, Jane.” he cried, taking his hand into one of his own, thumb rubbing. Maybe in another life, he could’ve done this every night. Hold his hand. Be by his side. Without the fear. Without the hell surrounding them. Damning them. 

More thunder, muffled this time. Everything was drowned out by Tavish, the only clear thing in this world, Jane's face, unafraid of death, but hurting all the same. Life was fading from his cheeks, from his nose. Color draining. 

“You have to live.” Jane said, as simple as that. If the sobs weren’t so thick, wracking through his entire being, Tavish would’ve laughed. Jane always had a way of making things sound so easy. 

_ Please,  _ he wanted to beg, to scream, to weep. Sit there forever, never having to leave, to say goodbye. But the enemies were closing in. Men were dying. And so was Jane.

Blood all over Tavish’s clothes, some got onto his forehead, his knuckles. They didn’t speak, but they knew. 

And just like that, Jane was gone. Another body in another war. 

Just like Tavish. 


End file.
